Going Nuts: Jericho's not-quite-Apocalypse

To review: CBS's end-o-the-world serial from last year, "Jericho," didn't do very well in the ratings, so it got canceled. End of story. Or not, because a very intense group of "Jericho" fans mounted a multimedia campaign to save the show, firing off emails, letters, billboards, videos, and, most famously, sacks of nuts to CBS execs in attempts to revive the show.

Bombs Away! "Jericho" Comes Back

And lo, it worked! Surprised and moved by the campaign, CBS brass decided to give the show a limited (seven-ep) pick-up for the coming season. Huzzah! And now all those "Jericho" fans, or some of them, anyway, are focusing their energy on sending email to TV journos such as myself, in order to convince us to write more and better articles about the show, to sustain its life on and on to eternity and beyond.

So OK. Message received. You can stop now. Please.

If only because I'm here in the Int'l Ballroom facing the "Jericho" cast, and hearing a breathless question from the woman who covers genre/fantasy/sci-fi and etc shows. I have to think that she's thrilled to the Nth degree. Her face is glowing. That's kind of cool.

Also cool: What this seems to imply about how the networks are thinking about their futures, and how viewers can interact with the programmers to get involved with the shows. Consider the new realm of online sites, the new content that can be found there, the games and bonus video, the back stories, the outtakes, and so on. In the past, networks were monolithic and non-responsive. Now, as viewers are increasingly fractured and distracted, they have to pay attention. Particularly to the super-motivated viewers.

Or so it seems. But maybe that's just a fanciful version of events, due to this exceptional turn of events with "Jericho."

Funny moment just now: Asked what they might have proposed fans to send to CBS, if not peanuts: